A Celebration of CV 11 and CV 12 During Earth Time

CV 11

JR Worsley translates JIAN LI as Established Mile, but Li isn’t a mile. LI means a neighborhood, a field, an acre, a common measurement of an amount of space that you might use for something in particular, e.g. I’ll put an acre into this, or I’ll put an acre into that. It’s a convenient spatial designation by which to organize something. CV 11 might more accurately be translated as Organized Acre, Cultivated Field. JIAN is the same term used in the formula known as Jian Pi Wan, often translated as Restore the Spleen, but it is also Organize the Spleen, or Cultivate the Spleen.

It is very common in the meridian system that often points are organized such that there are three points, corresponding to an upper, middle, and lower aspect of something, and then one extra point among them that is about the dynamic unity of those three points. You’ll find that pattern on various meridians, including CV and GV, of repeated groupings of three plus a one that harmonizes all three. The one that harmonizes all three is not necessarily at the top or the bottom. Often it’s somewhere in the midst. On CV, this extra “organizational point” is CV 11, the dynamic harmonizer of CV 13 Upper Cavity, CV 12 Middle Cavity, and CV 10 Lower Cavity. CV 11 JIAN LI is the central organizational place of all three burners in the middle burner, bringing the 3-ring circus all together, creating an ever-changing interpenetrating digestion of life.

CV 10 XIA WAN Lower Duct.  On the anterior median line of the upper abdomen, 2.0 ACI  above the umbilicus.

CV 11 JIAN LI  Established Mile. On the anterior median line of the upper abdomen, 3.0 ACI  above the umbilicus.

CV 12 ZHONG WAN Middle Duct. On the anterior median line of the upper abdomen, 4.0 ACI  above the umbilicus.

CV 13 SHANG WAN Upper Duct. On the anterior median line of the upper abdomen, 5.0 ACI  above the umbilicus.

CV 11 creates dynamic stability, like the stability of a hovering bird—there’s a wind from this direction and a wind from that direction and this direction and that—so that the bird is constantly adjusting its wings in order to stay in the same place. CV 11 JIAN LI Established Mile is about the continuous inter-working of all 3 burners to create a stability that is like that bird on the wing. It’s stability, but it’s a stability created by perfectly balanced interwoven movements of life.

Imagine if you took a tablecloth, and you had one person pull on each corner of the tablecloth. The warping and irregular tearing in the middle of that tablecloth is what often happens to a person’s Earth element, when they are tending so many different crops, in so many different regions of life, that they are always being pulled in a million directions at once. When this becomes a chronic experience for someone, they frequently present with a geographic tongue, i.e. a patchy tongue that looks a lot like an irregular landscape as seen from an airplane. This tongue exhibits when a person’s Earth element is being pulled to pieces in all directions, and the center is not holding integrity.

CV 11 JIAN LI, especially combined with ST 36 ZU SAN LI, is a powerful combination for consolidating and organizing a chaotic 3-ring circus life into a solid patchwork quilt of life. CV 11 Cultivated Acre brings that sense of the life as a balance of many different forces, and ST 36 ZU SAN LI brings it right down into the practical pathways of how we manage our daily life.

CV 12 In this regard, CV 11 JIAN LI is very different from its neighboring point, CV 12 ZHONG WAN. I call CV 12 ZHONG WAN “the Archimedes point,” for the famous saying by Archimedes, inventor of the lever: “Give me but a firm place to stand, and I will move the earth!” CV12 ZHONG WAN is the firm place to stand from which we can move the Earth. It is the “center,” the place from which we are capable of assessing our needs and our life as an intricate matrix of works in progress. It is stable like the hub of the wheel, not like a bird on the wing; as everything spins around and around it, the center holds, and is still.

CV 12 – ZHONG WAN Middle Duct.  On the anterior median line of the upper abdomen, 4.0 ACI  above the umbilicus.

Paradoxically, if what someone needs is to make a major overhaul of their ecology which will result in significant life changes, a great deal of stability is needed in order to support that much transformation. Without a sense of stability in our own center, we are often terrified of change. Even too much input, especially if it will cause us to need to respond or adjust in some way, may feel overwhelming if we do not have enough stability to be ready for real change. CV 12 ZHONG WAN serves as the steady central reference point that, with the help of ST 36 ZU SAN LI, allows us to stand in the center of our own ecology, and make the big changes that will allow us to thrive.

What are your clients needing now? What does your own Earth element need? Is it more of CV 12’s sense of enough stability inside to be able to make some big shifts in your life? Or is it the CV 11 capacity to find an ongoing sense of balance moment by moment, like a bird on the wing, as circumstances change around you?